A center median may be gone from a Palm Springs road, but a new entry sign could be on the way

Crews recently removed a center median on East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. It was damaged after a drunk driver crashed into it months ago.
Colin Atagi/The Desert Sun

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Dark pavement shows where a center median was removed from East Palm Canyon in Palm Springs. City officials will decide if they'll add a new entry sign near the site.(Photo: Colin Atagi/The Desert Sun)Buy Photo

We may not have seen the end of a city entry sign on East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs.

City leaders will decide at a later date what type of sign - if any - needs to replace the one that was damaged months ago just west of Gene Autry Trail. They haven't ruled out installing a sign on the side of the street instead of in the middle of the road, said Assistant City Manager Marcus Fuller.

Crews recently removed the center median that was installed last year for one of several entry signs across the city. All that's left is a conspicuously dark stretch of pavement between the east- and westbound lanes.

Removal occurred months after the sign and median were damaged in a crash.

On March 11, a Cathedral City woman was heading west on Palm Canyon when she drove onto the center median. Her BMW sedan continued moving forward and it struck the sign and rocks that were installed in the median, according to Palm Springs police.

The driver was convicted in May of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Now that the sign and median are gone, critics may be breathing a sigh of relief.

They often lamented the sign was ugly, but the biggest complaint was that the median prevented eastbound drivers from accessing the left-turn pocket sooner than they would have liked.

Delays, they said, were particularly bad whenever red lights forced them to wait in the left eastbound lane behind long lines of motorists continuing east toward Cathedral City.

Logic dictates the median would still be here if city officials hadn't committed to a new sign on the side of the road, or no sign at all. But plans aren't exactly definitive just yet.